Musings

We met a few kids post festive period who had a good laugh about having "sugar rush". I asked them what they meant by it ( I already know what it is), and they proudly said, "being hyper/cheeky/laughy ( amongst other description) after eating a lot of sugar!" Though I have heard of it but I always had my doubts about such a rationale. I grew up eating a lot of chocolates and sweets at social gatherings but never experienced a "sugar-esque" behaviour. Any "hyper/mischievous/la

Many learn and practice music for the exams and certifications. While it is certainly helpful to keep progress in check, music education can lose its meaning when we start learning and practising for the sole reason of clearing exams. In the work with children of all abilities, we see how music mean a lot more than just certifications. It is always heartening when we see a child taking his own initiative to figure out tunes to play and enjoy with the skills he has picked up

Recent conversations with different people reminded us how there are times when we identify and judge a child by his/her diagnoses. While diagnoses help us understand certain behaviours and idiosyncrasies better, it should not be something we use to identify the child with . It is just like how when we have a friend who is having a medical challenge, we do not first describe him or her by the condition they have. Well, I hope we don't. Descriptions of our friends might be so

The practice at Rejoice Creative is a child-centered one. I remember speaking to a parent of a child who just started sessions and she said with a little of disdain, "I know.. you follow everything the kid does." Hmm.. that cannot be further from what it really is. Child centred sessions @ Rejoice Creative Music, means looking at what the child needs in the moment and adjusting our interventions to meet them where they are at, all the whilst bearing in mind what the ove

We always look forward to breakthroughs in our sessions. These breakthroughs can come in many forms including: a meaningful glance from a child who usually keeps to herself a sustained musical response a spontaneous vocal response a sudden outburst of laughter in response to the musical intervention sustained musical connection Sometimes we are busy looking for and working towards the overall big picture objectives (e.g. I want my child to be able to communicate verbally), t

Recently, NYTimes published an essay written by Eileen Gu, one of the Winter Olympic gold medalists, about her relationship with pressure and stress. (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/sports/olympics/eileen-gu-skiing-fear.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur ). It was interesting to read about what goes on in the mind of an Olympian. What struck me were her words on “bolstering her self-esteem” and “minimizing her need for external validation”. This was something that I hav

Recently, I had conversations with some individuals who appeared to think that learning music or an instrument is just about the most straightforward thing to do. Although all of us respond naturally to music, the spontaneous response is quite different from learning the art form and its language. There are so many cognitive and motor skills involved in playing an instrument: Hand – eye coordination, coordination of hands and feet, spatial recognition of the instrument, readi